NDPR Jay L. Garfield and Sonam Thakchöe By the Light of the Moon: Candrakīrti's Prāsaṅgika Madhyamaka

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Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews

2026.01.1 View this Review Online View Other NDPR Reviews

Jay L. Garfield and Sonam Thakchöe, By the Light of the Moon: Candrakīrti’s Prāsaṅgika Madhyamaka, Oxford University Press, 2025, 208pp., $24.99 (pbk) ISBN 9780197830758.

Reviewed by Justin P. Holder, Ashoka University

Candrakīrti (c.600 CE India) is a philosopher within the Madhyamaka tradition of Buddhist philosophy, which has its foundation in the work of Nāgārjuna (c.150 CE India). Madhyamaka philosophers argue that all entities are ‘empty’, a term of art which, for them, signifies a lack of metaphysical substance, which, in turn, disqualifies things from being considered ultimately existent. Critics of Madhyamaka overwhelmingly consider it to be a nihilistic doctrine, while its proponents’ diverse interpretations of it range from ‘moderate realism’ to ‘pretty much nihilism (but that’s OK)’. Garfield and Thakchöe’s primary thesis in By the Light of the Moon is that...